


Faith

by Giglet



Category: Highlander: The Series
Genre: 100-1000 Words, Gen, Short
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-06-26
Updated: 2009-06-26
Packaged: 2017-10-03 01:20:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Giglet/pseuds/Giglet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They'd come so that Methos could pray to his gods. Nobody else remembers their names.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Faith

Methos slants a glance at Joe as he begins. Joe just leans on his cane and watches, silent. Methos invited him, and Joe trusts him, and it is simple.

They'd come to this hilltop so that Methos could pray to his gods. Nobody else prays to them today. Nobody but Methos remembers so much as their names or attributes. Methos (of course) doesn't prosyletize. It has been millenia since he even admitted to believing in anything other than whatever religion prevaled at that moment.

But that doesn't mean he doesn't believe. It doesn't mean that he doesn't pray, doesn't sacrifice to please the gods. He can't not believe, after all this time.

Once, the sacrifice would have been his blood, but his blood was devalued before the Trojan War. Same as his pain: it was too common to be fitting. Not that he'd given up blood sacrifices entirely. Sometimes it was a fattened goat or other animal given to the fire. During his artisanal phases, he'd offered up his best pottery, his best weaving, whatever he thought most worthy to transcend earth to keep the gods company. Only a few years ago, he'd printed out a computer worm that could have made him rich or destroyed the Internet, and burnt it for the pleasure of the gods. (They held destruction in their hands. A sacrifice didn't have to be good, it merely had to be powerful, meaningful.)

But blood and food were old standbys.

His prayers are private, but this time he thinks it's okay to have company. He wants it to be okay, he wants someone to understand. He doesn't look at Joe as he tips the fine old wine (the best he has) out of his glass to soak into the ground. He whispers the words in a language now forgotten, words that are older than glass-blowing, older even than wine-making. Joe can't understand, not really, and that's part of the sacrifice, too. But Joe stands silently, respecting what it means to Methos as he prays in a language forgotten by everyone except one lonely old Immortal and even lonelier old gods.


End file.
